845 Life: The mayor of Simpsonville

He has never been elected, but that's only because he never ran for office.

But really, it's only a technicality because David Simpson is the Mayor of Simpsonville and he has been for 30 years now.

The self-proclaimed mayor that is: Population of one. Located right there in the Black Dirt region of Goshen on Big Island Road, his small house surrounded on three sides by onion farms.

“We used to have a population of 17,” David says proudly. “That's when the house across the street was owned by a family named Simpson. No relation.

“With my family and their family, there were Simpsons everywhere,” he says, waving his arms.

So 30 years ago, when the street was positively teeming with people named Simpson, David had an idea. He created Simpsonville just for fun and named himself mayor.

He had a small sign manufactured through a mail order site and put it up on a pole at the end of his property.

Just as a joke.

Almost immediately it was stolen. So he purchased another one and that one was stolen too.

The third one he had welded to an I-beam and embedded in cement. That kept the sign stealers at bay. Not that people don't still try.

“Every once in a while I see kids trying to pull it out of the ground,” David says. “But it's in there real good.

“Maybe they try to steal it because of that TV show called 'The Simpsons,'” David says.

The family across the street eventually moved away, David's own children moved on and his wife died seven years ago. And David Simpson, 77, has lived in the small house next to the onion fields for 40 years now.

The old joke is but a fading memory and decades later the sign itself is showing signs of age.

“When the one and the seven fell off this year, I just got out a marker and penciled in the number one for population,” he says. “Because I'm the only one left.”

So what are the advantages of being the Mayor of Simpsonville?

“Not a damn thing,” David says.

John DeSanto is senior editor for photography at the Times Herald-Record. Contact him at: jdesanto@th-record.com